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Prepared by Douglas K. Benson
Judy Berry-Bravo
The Wichita State University Abstract: Research indicates the importance of teaching second language (L2) vocabulary in a meaningful context, as well as repair strategies that equip students for communication when vocabulary creates breakdown. Native speakers of a language (L1) routinely employ circumlocution when a word fails to come to mind and are adept at asking for and providing one another with additional language that keeps communication open. While researchers agree that teachers must equip L2 students with similar repair strategies, little has been said about precisely how to accomplish this. Textbooks rarely furnish practice along these lines, yet teachers must prepare students to perform well during ACTFL interviews, in class, and correspondingly in real-life situations. This essay details ideas which can be implemented in beginning level classes and expanded upon as students progress to advanced courses. Key Words: second language pedagogy, vocabulary, circumlocution, oral proficiency, communicative competence, repair strategies, negotiated meaning, intermediate Spanish In recent years much discussion has centered on the validity and implementation of a proficiency-oriented approach to foreign language instruction. Vocabulary holds a central place in this approach. Lists are grouped by semantic fields and aim to provide appropriate items to allow students to function within a specific situation. How teachers should present that vocabulary is the subject of many articles. One study, for example, correctly insists on its culturally authentic contextualization and offers insights for doing so (Spinelli and Sisken). At the same time, numerous researchers have defined and redefined communicative competence. Savignon points out that communication «is a continuous process of expression, interpretation, and negotiation». She stresses the fact that «every program with a goal of communicative competence... should give attention to opportunities for meaningful L2 use, opportunities to focus on message rather than form» (8, 96). Her work provides various innovative ideas for classroom activities that promote communication. Meanwhile, Jarvis has called for «many descriptive studies utilizing all research methodologies and hybrid combinations of them». One of the questions we must answer is «in what way students become active in the classroom» (304). Brooks' longitudinal study of a college level Spanish conversation course provides one disturbing answer to that question. He notes that when breakdown occurs during paired and group activities, students make few attempts «to use Spanish as the medium of the repair strategy». At that crucial moment of breakdown, they abandon Spanish and become active users of English. He warns that such code switching «seems to reflect that Spanish, the language ostensibly being learned in the course, was not really necessary or even logical for natural communicative exchanges, especially when breakdowns in communication occur». One conclusion he reaches is that «students need to learn such strategies as circumlocution to make unknown lexical items comprehensible» («Talking» 1121-22). Indeed, little has been said about that essential strategy for effective communication which is our focus here. Native speakers of any given language regularly employ circumlocution whenever vocabulary creates breakdown. Yet somehow, we have ignored that fact and left our students ill-prepared to handle such L2 situations. Websters'
New Universal Unabridged Dictionary defines
«circumlocution» as «the use of a number of words to express
an idea; an indirect or lengthy way of expressing something; also, an instance
of this» (McKechnie 329). All those who hope to be rated at the
According to the generic descriptions of speaking given in an appendix to The ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview Tester Training Manual, one hallmark of an Intermediate-High level speaker is that «limited vocabulary still necessitates hesitation and may bring about slightly unexpected circumlocution» (Buck et al. 2). With a person rated at the Advanced level, «circumlocution which arises from vocabulary or syntactic limitations very often is quite successful, though some groping for words may still be evident». Likewise, a person who achieves an Advanced-Plus rating «often shows a well developed ability to compensate for an imperfect grasp of some forms with confident use of communicative strategies, such as paraphrasing and circumlocution». Those guidelines distinguish a Superior level speaker by his or her command of «a wide variety of interactive strategies and... good awareness of discourse strategies» (3). This process of making ourselves understood when the exact term escapes us is one with which we have extensive experience in our native language but one that is seldom taught or practiced in the target language. At an early point in our own Spanish-language training, we probably learned «¿Cómo se dice?» and began to use teachers as walking dictionaries. Kramsch notes that such a practice ignores fundamental cultural differences:
Even supposing that under such pressure our teachers had hit on the precise term, naturally, those instant translations seldom entered our active lexicons, since we had invested little in their discovery and probably no follow-up practice with them occurred. Our more patient instructors allowed us to lean on them linguistically, while others told us to «look it up in the dictionary». Although it may be argued that there are times when both techniques remain valid, foreign language teachers today must seek out new ways to actively equip students with experiences and skills in circumlocution and devise strategies which prepare students for that vital component of the ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview, for classroom simulation role playing, and for all of those unforeseen, real-life circumstances when a teacher will not be available to play the part of dictionary. This report is based on experiences with university and secondary students ranging from first semester to advanced language classes. Beginning Spanish students routinely encounter such words as «persona..... lugar», and «cosa». Unfortunately, textbooks often relegate those terms to «passive» vocabulary and rarely incorporate them into «active» lists or provide exercises for their review. Teachers who wish to set the stage for a smooth transition to circumlocution as students progress can alter this practice. Pictures cut from magazines provide excellent and inexpensive stimuli for yes/no questions such as «¿Es un lugar?»; «¿Es una cosa?»; «¿Es una persona?» From this, students can proceed to similar complete-sentence oral responses when teachers present like stimuli. Within a few lessons and a matter of weeks, students will have
the additional vocabulary that would make possible such phrases in Spanish as
«es una persona que...» or
«es un lugar donde...» or
«es una cosa para...» When
introducing new lexical items, however, textbooks rarely employ this
rudimentary strategy of circumlocution. Again, teachers must make it happen.
Recycling those pictures is an excellent way. Verbs such as «bailar» and «vender» are among the first that students
study during the initial semester, yet how often do they get a chance to hear
that «un bailarín es una persona que baila muy
bien» or that «¿un
bailarín es una persona que baila
Using this same strategy, students can talk about the utensils one needs to set a table by saying, «un cuchillo es una cosa para cortar la carne» or «una servilleta es una cosa para limpiarte la boca cuando comes». By the same token, a pen becomes «una cosa que usas para escribir y no es un lápiz» and a book can be «una cosa que lees o estudias». One activity I find successful is «identificaciones». Before class, the teacher puts objects whose names students should know in a brown paper sack or cardboard box. During the lesson, he or she gazes into that container and describes one of the items, encouraging students to ask for repetition, clarification or more information. When someone successfully names the object the teacher pulls it out and repeats all of the descriptors while placing it on the table. The same occurs when no one is able to guess correctly, but the teacher puts the object back in the container. After describing two or three other items, the teacher returns to the one they missed. After having played the game this way, on subsequent occasions students receive bags with different objects and now they provide descriptions. Once teachers begin to think about how to recombine basic vocabulary and structures learned in the early stages of language classes, they are certain to come up with many examples. Circumlocution can best be introduced as a viable communication technique by modeling it ourselves as often as possible. Teachers will find that they can employ much more than spoken language, since all of us in our native language and culture also utilize gestures and pantomime to make ourselves understood when a word escapes us. Seaver's work details the frequency with which we use these strategies in interpersonal communication and demonstrates how to include mimetic activities in the foreign language classroom. Teachers must resist the temptation to take the easy way out and merely give a translation when the possibility exists that students will understand through circumlocution or non-verbal means. By setting the example and allowing them to hear and decipher such messages, they will gain confidence to perform similarly under like circumstances. In addition to such oral/aural practice, teachers should provide written assignments which allow students to progress at an individual pace. Just as with the pictures used for speaking and listening in introductory lessons, simple responses are appropriate initially. An easily graded activity involves a grid of choices whereby students need only mark the corresponding category, as in the abbreviated example which follows:
As students continue to acquire more language, one might make a fist of vocabulary and a fist of definitions. Such work with professions, for example, may produce a lexicon that includes «siquiatra», «actor», and «juez». Along with that list, students receive a simple fill-in-the-blank definition (i. e., «__________ es una persona que ayuda a las personas que tienen problemas mentales»; «_________ es una persona que trabaja en la televisión o en películas»; «_________ es una persona que decide casos en la corte») and have them decide what best fits. If we introduce students to such strategies early in their language training, they should find the transition to intermediate and eventually advanced classes to be much less stressful. As all who teach intermediate level courses are painfully aware,
there is a broad range from the top to the bottom of the class. Especially
All this is to say that once students reach intermediate-level classes, they must take additional responsibility for developing their skills through circumlocution. I have found that getting them to define new vocabulary in the second language with words that they already know in that language is an effective means of achieving this. I routinely open my third semester course, the first titled «Spanish Conversation», with the following handout: As I introduce new lexical items, I am careful to use and expand on the above and encourage students to do the same. The possibilities are infinite, but here are some of the most frequently needed expressions: Circumstance requires flexibility and inventiveness from teachers in tune with this strategy, just as it routinely does of L1 speakers in normal conversation. Student input begins with the first vocabulary they are to
learn. I write each word (or group of words) on a small slip of paper. These
include such items as
«el asiento de pasillo»,
«la cordillera», «aterrizar», and
«la azafata». For homework,
each receives two or three of these to define (depending on class size since
the first vocabulary fist in their textbook contains thirty-four items). I
collect all definitions, make necessary grammatical corrections, and enter them
in the computer. A print-out provides every student with a workable definition
appropriate for the intermediate level. Examples from this semester include:
«el asiento de pasillo es el lugar para sentarse
que queda cerca de donde se puede caminar dentro de un vehículo de
transporte»; «la cordillera es Douglas K. Benson, a colleague at Kansas State University, effectively uses a variation of this technique. He suggests that teachers hand out to each group of three students a list of three words. They are to come up with brief definitions speaking only in Spanish. After five minutes, a member of each group reads the group's definition of one word out loud, and the other groups guess at the word. Another student then reads one definition in turn, and the other groups guess again. He finds that this takes the load off the teacher and is a fast way of covering a lot of vocabulary; it uses higher-level cognitive strategies to boot. Student-generated definitions not only give much needed practice with circumlocution, but for the purposes of language learners are superior to those found in dictionaries. Compare those cited above, for example, with those found in a Spanish-Spanish dictionary. «El asiento de pasillo» requires two searches: «asiento m. Cosa que sirve para sentarse» and «pasillo m. Pieza del paso, larga y angosta de cualquier edificio» (García-Pelayo y Gross 102, 774). Even a recombination of these is not as clear or as specific as what intermediate students can produce for themselves. Likewise, «cordillera» is dictionary-defined as «f. Cadena de montañas» (276). A second search reveals that «cadena» is defined with some thirty-one lines of examples, the first of which (and where most students would stop reading) is «f. Conjunto de eslabones trabados: cadena de oro». Those who persist will find that lines twenty through twenty-one mention «Cadena de montañas, serie de montañas enlazadas entre sí, cordillera» (176). The case of «aterrizar» also presents frustrations for those who seek its meaning in a dictionary since it is defined as «v. i. Tomar tierra: aterrizar un avión en la pista del aeródromo» (108). Clearly, students gain more usable information from creating and sharing their own definitions. They are able to relate new vocabulary to something already known, which thereby facilitates their acquisition of new lexical items, concepts, and semantic relationships. Practice during class can be cast in the form of a lively game. The teacher may first divide the group into teams and then, using the same slips of paper, give each student one word for which he/she will be responsible. They must not show their words to anyone. After a minute or so to think about it play begins. One person from the first team defines his/her word before the whole class. Such spontaneous speech is, obviously, less sophisticated than what they produce on homework assignments. That team has one minute to ask for more information as necessary and to say the word. The teacher may use a stop-watch and make the sound of a buzzer to heighten the «game show experience». If anyone on that person's team says the word, that student earns a point which the teacher marks on the board. If they are unsuccessful, the chance goes to the second team and so on, each with thirty seconds to respond. Subsequent response time decreases, since all teams have the benefit of having heard prior teams' attempts. If no one guesses correctly, the teacher can guess at the word and will find success with close to a hundred percent rate of accuracy (which proves to the «defining» person that communication was possible to someone who knows the vocabulary). A person from the second team continues play by defining his/her word for that team and so on until all items have been utilized. Students love this game and therefore seem to forget their inhibitions. As research indicates, with high interest activities, students forget self-consciousness and are primarily engaged in communicative goals (Horwitz 17). My usual prize to the team that wins is coins or candies from a Spanish-speaking country, and, of course, applause for all contestants. This type of activity is in line with findings that effective
group work should be based on cooperation and collaboration (Johnson and
Johnson). Because students are engaged in a
Over the course of the semester, I introduce and students practice increasingly more sophisticated expressions such as the following to get additional information:
By encouraging students to ask for clarification or more information once a definition has been given, they receive the benefits of practice with negotiated meanings. As we know, students' productive abilities develop when demanded to manipulate their interlanguage system in order to make unclear messages more meaningful (Swain 247). Acquiring skills with circumlocution is an on-going, daily process. Teachers must encourage students engaged in any type of small group activity to employ that strategy, since the temptation to fall back into English is always great. As the teacher circulates around the room, he/she should interject with praise and examples that remind students of the importance of remaining in the target language. In one such «overheard» instance, a student was convincing two others to buy a package of herbal tea. She was explaining how popular it is in England when one asked, «¿Inglaterra?» She responded with, «Es un país en Europa donde hablan inglés». This was sufficient to cause the other to ask, «¿En London?» to which she replied affirmatively by shaking her head. I interceded with, «Sí, Londres está en Inglaterra». They were rightfully pleased that communication in the target language had not faltered. Tests for knowledge of lexical items can use the same format of circumlocution. Communication is the focus, and grammar matters only in that communication must not be inhibited. A recent exam, for example, yielded diverse yet equally «correct» definitions for «subir a bordo»: «es la acción de entrar en un vehículo, por ejemplo, un tren o un avión, para empezar un viaje» and «es cuando los pasajeros entran al avión». Definitions for «el equipaje» included: «es el conjunto de objetos que se usa para llevar lo que uno posee cuando se hace un viaje» and «es lo que utilizas para llevar tus cosas cuando viajas». At times they receive words to be defined, and at others, appropriate definitions for which they must write the corresponding items from their vocabulary list. Learning to rely on themselves through circumlocution is not an easy process for learners of a language. Teachers must model such behavior throughout the semester and respond favorably to any attempts students make to do the same. A former student recently admitted that she had struggled with developing that side of her conversational ability, but after having spent a summer in Mexico she reported that what she had gained from consistent practice in our conversation class proved to be the most valuable asset she had in real-life encounters abroad. She would agree with the premise that
As we all know, some of our very «best» students (the compulsive perfectionists) «freeze» when they don't know a specific term or can't recall it exactly. We must reject the role of walking dictionary and convince students that no one knows every word in any language and yet we all survive, thanks to competence with learned and acquired repair strategies. Clearly, if we are to prepare our students to perform well during ACTFL interviews, in class, and correspondingly in real-life situations, it is incumbent upon us to begin to develop their skills with circumlocution as early as possible. WORKS CITED
Brooks, Frank B. «Talking and Learning to Talk in the Spanish Conversation Course». Hispania 74 (December 1991): 1115-23. ___. «Can We Talk?» Foreign Language Annals 25 (February 1992): 59-71. Buck, Kathryn, Heidi Byrnes, and Irene Thompson, eds. The ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview Tester Training Manual. New York: The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, 1989. García-Pelayo y Gross, Ramón, ed. Pequeño Larousse Ilustrado. Paris: Ediciones Larousse, 1974. Horwitz, Elaine K. «Attending to the Affective Domain in the Foreign Language Classroom». Shifting the Instructional Focus to the Learner. Ed. Sally Sieloff Magnan. Middlebury: Northeast Conference, 1990. 15-33. Jarvis, Gilbert A. «Research on Teaching Methodology: Its Evolution and Prospects». Foreign Language Acquisition Research and the Classroom. Ed. Barbara F. Freed. Lexington, MA. D. C. Heath, 1991. 295-306. Johnson, David W., and Roger T. Johnson. Learning Together and Alone. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1975. Kramsch, Claire. «The Order of Discourse in Language Teaching». Foreign Language Acquisition Research and the Classroom. Ed. Barbara F. Freed. Lexington, MA. D. C. Heath, 1991. 191-204. McKechnie, Jean L, ed. Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary. New York. Simon and Schuster, 1983. Savignon, Sandra J. Communicative Competence: Theory and Classroom Practice. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1983. Seaver, Paul W., Jr. «Pantomime as an L2 Classroom Strategy». Foreign Language Annals 25 (February 1992): 21-31. Spinelli, Emily, and H. Jay Sisken. «Selecting, Presenting and Practicing Vocabulary in a Culturally-Authentic Context». Foreign Language Annals 25 (September 1992): 305-14. Swain, Merrill. «Communicative Competence: Some Roles of Comprehensible Input and Comprehensible Output in its Development». Input and Second Language Acquisition. Eds. Susan M. Gass and Carolyn G. Madden. Rowley, ME: Newbury House, 1985. 235-53. Van Patten, Bill. «The Foreign Language Classroom as a Place to Communicate». Foreign Language Acquisition Research and the Classroom. Ed. Barbara F. Freed. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath, 1991. 54-73. 
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